Tuesday, 2 August 2011

The Advocate: How did you decide you were going to be open about your sexuality?

Luke Evans: Well it was something I'd spoken to a lot of people about, including my boyfriend at the time - we've broken up now - but at the time when I just got Taboo, I knew that even though my part was a straight character, everybody knew me as a gay man and, in my life in London, I never tried to hide it. I knew I was going to have to do interviews with gay magazines, so I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have to be open’. It’s who I am. And if people don’t like it, then I don’t want their jobs. I've never been a very good liar, which is another thing...

The Advocate: Aren't actors all good liars?

Luke Evans: Well, it's not nice. Look at George Michael, let's say. I mean, he hid it for so many years, and then he gets found out in a really awful way... Y'know, you start a slippery slope downward, and I don't want to start that at 22. If that means I'm going to be a poor man at 60, then at least I've lived a happy, open, gay life and not had to hide from anybody.

The Advocate: Do you think it might be different in the UK than in America?

Luke Evans: Well, it depends on how big you are. It's not a big issue, and it's never going to be a big issue for me; whether I'm successful or if I weren't successful, at least I'll never have that skeleton in the closet they can rattle out. Y'know what I mean?

Fresh from playing breastplate-baring Zeus in Immortals and Apollo in Clash Of The Titans, 31-year-old Evans is sword fighting once again in a re-make of The Three Musketeers.

And Evans, from Aberbargoed, is described as “top farmer totty” for his role in Brit-com Tamara Drewe, has a special reason to be careful with his blade now he is dating stunning fashion industry marketing expert Holly Goodchild.

Miss Goodchild, 27, former personal assistant to Welsh singing superstar Church, said at the Tamara Drewe movie premiere: “Luke’s lovely – we’re really old friends and it just sort of happened.”